explain it to me like I'm a child...

[deleted]

As someone who entered that world near its demise, and who also didn't know anything about business or start-up companies before that, I can tell you a few things that might help.

Terms like "B2B" are, first and foremost, just jargon the movie uses that's purposely difficult to understand, because the whole notion in the movie was that the company was all hype and marketing.

"B2B," for example, refers to business to business commerce, versus business to consumer. "B2B" was desirable because a customer/client who's a big business will spend much more money, much less cautiously and in response to much less expensive marketing, than an individual consumer. But again, the point isn't that those terms had some hidden significance; they were just the trendy lingo of that time.

What they were selling with all that language was the company itself. The common practice was to create a business model that sounded good, build a company around it, set up a website, then try to take it public (i.e., sell shares in the company on the stock market) or get acquired (e.g., have Microsoft buy your whole company from you).

It was not at all unusual for a company with nothing more than an idea (e.g., selling pet food online) to get lots of funding from private investors who hoped that the company would later be sold for many times their initial investment amount. Google "Pets.com" and "Windblad" to see what I mean.

Once a company got initial funding, its founders, inexperienced in business, would often spend the money decorating offices and hiring employees they didn't really need. I personally worked for two companies that spent millions creating a sales force long before there was actually a product to sell. The founders, having no actual business knowledge, were trying to create what looked like a legitimate business in part to get even more investment money and in part because they just didn't know any better.

Think of "cargo cults," where purportedly primitive people see Americans build towers and runways and talk into boxes, bringing food and supplies. The primitives then build their own towers, runways and boxes in the hopes of attracting cargo of their own. Many, MANY start-up companies burned a lot of money creating what looked like a big business before their companies actually DID any real business. Many others did do business, but spent way more than they could ever hope to earn (look up kozmo.com for a first-class example of a non-workable business model).

I guess the point of all this is that many people didn't know what their own company's product was supposed to be or what they were supposed to do when they were hired. They could sit around looking busy, but wouldn't actually have anything to do. The movie could've done a better job of making that part clear, I suppose. It was clear to me, but I actually experienced it first hand.

1. arrogant young guy hypes up a company which is really just a front.
2. people eventually figure out company doesn't really do anything and its value crashes.
3. arrogant young guy continues to annoy/disappoint everyone in his life.
4. arrogant young guy bought out for a pittance, has to eat crow.

Now, add enough filler to take 90 minutes to move from point 1 to point 4, and that's August.




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